Recently more and more people have been exercising to maintain physical fitness. This may be because more and more people have occupations which may be deemed sedentary and therefore auxiliary exercise is needed to utilize dormant muscles. Two of the more popular exercises are running and swimming. Where the swimming is done in pools and the running is done on tracks the performer usually counts laps. Often he or she sets a certain number of laps as a goal per exercise session or else is interested in knowing how many laps he or she can run or swim in a given amount of time. Very often during the running and/or swimming the performer loses count of the laps. Accordingly various devices have been put on the market to aid the runner and swimmer in counting the number of laps which have been covered. The most popular device of this type is a mechanical counter which is held in the runner's hand where after each lap, the runner actuates a lever that sets a succeeding number on the face of the counter.
These devices work well except that often the runner will forget to actuate the device to provide the sequential count. Additonally it is uncomfortable to have to hold the mechanical counter and do the actuation thereof.
Accordingly there is a long felt need for a reliable automatic counting device which does not require the user to do the actuation for the counting and which does not have to be held in the user's hand.